"Loretta LaRoche"

By Tina Russell

Hmmm, Loretta LaRoche or the circus? Let's see...red squishy clown noses, black plastic glasses with a big nose and fake mustache...it could be that the circus is in town. But it could also be that you've just purchased Loretta LaRoche 's DVD, complete with an accompanying nose and glasses, and your sides are about to ache from all the laughter.

Today's guest is an international lecturer, an expert stress management consultant, an Emmy Award winning star of several PBS specials and an adjunct faculty member of the Mind/Body Medical Institute,

Tina Russell, a writer for spirituality.com, recently talked with Loretta LaRoche about managing stress through humor and what, if any, connection there is between humor and spirituality.

spirituality.com: You've given some talks at some well-known corporations. When you first started, how hard was it for the corporate world to value stress management through humor? Did they go for the Loretta LaRoche approach?

Loretta LaRoche: I started out primarily in the medical arena and it really took off there first. Nurses and doctors and mental health counselors really understand the use of humor from the dark side-you know, gallows humor. Which is a cathartic process for them. They really understood where I was coming from. To those who are in this quagmire of doom and gloom on a daily basis, it's necessary to use the type of humor they use because it gives them some relief from the situation.

This is the core of most humor, to give relief. Unless it's directed toward hurting people, or being sarcastic. Then it might give the person doing it relief, but it certainly doesn't help anybody else!

spirituality.com: So that segued into corporate venues?

Loretta: As I went along my merry way, I started connecting with people who are married to people in corporate cultures or in different organizations. I started getting phone calls from banks. It was tough in the beginning because I was really on my own journey, trying to figure out where this was going to go. But people really liked it.

I think I was more intent on making people laugh. Of course that's always been my intent. I was the class clown, the little social butterfly, running around disrupting everyone. [Laughter.] I spent a lot of time in the principal's office.

spirituality.com: What does spirituality mean to you personally?

Loretta: I think it is the relationship you have to yourself and the world, which involves speaking to a higher self. The spiritual place to be is to say, "Wow, how do I fill the cup for all people around me? How do I help people look for abundance in their life, how do I get them to embrace others?" I think it is about kindness, empathy and love, don't you?

spirituality.com: Most definitely. Words like compassion, love, forgiveness, they often are given a spiritual connotation, something that comes from God. Could you say that humor also has a divine nature, a quality that we get from God?

Loretta: I certainly think that if we believe in a compassionate God, that a sense of humor had to be indigenous to whoever this entity is. Because all you have to do is look at a porcupine! [Laughter.] Or watch a squirrel. I mean, I am in constant amusement when I look into my yard and I watch this squirrel jump on the bird feeder and he doesn't get it and he keeps doing summersaults over the top of it. So I think well, whoever designed squirrels and all of the animals had an incredible sense of humor. And then went on to say, "Well, let's create a human prototype." [Laughter.]

spirituality.com: So in your experience, do you think that having some sort of spiritual belief makes a person even more prone to being happy?

Loretta: Oh absolutely! You look for the positive side of life, you're more optimistic. You're more trusting, you look at people and you have forgiveness in your heart for who they are. It's not to say there aren't people who aren't dysfunctional or really nasty, but it's easier to live in the world because you can just say, "Well, they just ain't right." What can we do? Let's send love and kindness to them and perhaps this will turn them around or at least help those who are in contact with them. I've always been the kind of person that says, "What can we do to turn this around?"

spirituality.com: What motivates you? A lot of people live their lives and don't seem to care about their fellow man.

Loretta: I always have! [Laughter.] I was this little kid who went to the old lady's house down the street who could hardly move, and pulled her weeds. We were a community when I was growing up. Whenever someone was sick, my grandmother would make stuff and bring it over. My grandmother was very influential in my life. There was always the sense that one had to display charity for other people and their needs.

spirituality.com: A lot of folks don't have much of a sense of humor to begin with. How do you teach someone to get some humor in their life?

Loretta: I don't think it starts with teaching people humor. I can teach a person to be more optimistic. It is our viewpoint of the world that really creates our feelings and behavior. And those kinds of things can be altered.

You can change the way you think. I can't necessarily make you a comedian, but as you begin to change how you think, you begin to have a better sense of humor. It is starting out by learning how to be in good humor. It is looking through a different lens, not a Mary Poppins viewpoint, or Pollyanna, they're basically ineffective and passive. It is the resiliency of optimism to wake up.

Like today, we're hearing, "It's raining, it's pouring in Boston." All right so, now what? What do we do now? The obvious thing is to have a raincoat, put it on, get an umbrella, and go out. But the pessimist makes the rain negate the whole day. It puts a shading of gray over the whole day.

You alter things so that they become more appetizing, instead of acting like you're having hemlock every day! [Laughter.] In this culture, we love to do comparative suffering. It's like, if I can make my life worse than your life, I win! [Laughter.]

spirituality.com: What is the most memorable story you can recall, something someone said after one of your talks?

Loretta: Two really outstanding things I think. I am really touched by the number of people who will reveal they saw me when they were really depressed and it helped switch around how they thought.

One of the most unbelievable situations came about at a conference I did that also included this group of people who do some singing. They're called The Sound Bytes. They sing a cappella. One of the fellows in it had had brain cancer. He got up with the group and sang a song to me as a testimonial to saying that I helped save his life-that watching my videos during his bout with brain cancer helped save his life. He created a song from that. It just blew me away.

Recently I was in Buffalo and this gentleman was online and he said, "I want you to know you saved my life. I was just moments away from committing suicide and I heard your voice on my television." Now why he has the television on when he is trying to kill himself I have no idea. But he said, "Something you said stopped me and that was several years ago. Now I have four grandchildren and I want to thank you for helping to save my life."

spirituality.com: That must be so gratifying, to have your work help others like that.

Loretta: That to me is the most gratifying portion of this, as I have sort of matured. Instead of like 25 years ago I was more into "Look at me, look at me!" I was the class clown, and now I've got a job, doing what I used to get punished for! [Laughter.] Now I think I've matured into someone who has really looked at this from many, many angles, philosophically, spiritually, and psychologically. I feel that I am on the path to hopefully getting a little piece of heaven somewhere. Maybe God will say, "Hey, here's a humor cloud, sit on it!" [Laughter.]

spirituality.com: Is that where you find God in your life, through your work?

Loretta: I think so. My spirituality, my sense of God is really the "ah-ha"s I see in my work. I think I'm on the right path, I think I'm doing what I'm meant to do on this planet.

The ultimate sadness is when someone feels hostage to their lives. When we are not in right relationship to ourselves and what we're supposed to be doing here on this Earth, we then cause a lot of problems around us.

When you're sort of held in the moment and the moments just flow so you don't even know one moment from the next, that's true happiness. That comes about when people are praying or meditating.

People are always seeking a higher something. Your higher self is right there when you're in relationship to something that takes you to a place where you don't even know that time and space exist. When I'm working, I feel, "This is right." I'm in right relationship to the world and to what I should be doing.

spirituality.com: So you are doing God's work then?

Loretta: I really feel that. I think this is my divine path.